A GEEK DADDY: Sharing a dad's adventures in parenting plus enjoying the geeky side of life

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

HOW TO PLAY TOP TRUMPS

Top Trumps is a great card game for kids. It is both educational and entertaining combining informational facts, stats and trivia with strategy as players try to trump each other with their top cards. Whether enjoying for a family game night or taking on the road to amuse children while traveling, Top Trumps is always a fun game to play. We've played Top Trumps numerous places including over a picnic table while camping, in our car while on a road trip, and on a playground during a family reunion. A deck of Top Trumps cards is very handy to have around.

There are a wide range of themes to card decks designed to be appealing to young players. Deck themes include animals (Bugs / Cats / Dogs / Predators / Sharks / Snakes), history (Ancient Egypt, Greek Mythology / United States Presidents), movies (Despicable Me, Harry Potter, Fast & Furious), places (Countries of the World / National Parks / Space) and vehicles (Airplanes, Fastest Train, Sports Cars) among other topics. There are more than 50 Top Trumps card game decks to choose from.

My kids enjoy delving through Top Trump cards examining all the impressive imagery and information contained on each card. For example for the Dinosaur pack every card features a realistic illustration of a specific type of dinosaur including Barosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Velociraptor. Thirty dinosaurs in all!

Each card contains unique information including a paragraph highlighting important details about the featured dinosaur and playable game stats such as height, weight, and killer rating. Killer rating for example is the likelihood of which species would win in a dinosaur fight. Carnivores like a T-Rex score a 9 out of 10 while herbivores such as a Styracosaurus score a 2. Each card in the Dinosaur deck also has a Meat-O-Meter which measures what dinosaurs like to eat when it comes to carrion and plants.

So how do you play a game of Top Trumps? First you gather 2 to 10 players to compete against one another. Then you follow these 7 steps for playing the card game:

1. Shuffle and deal all cards to players face down.

2. Each player holds their cards so they can only see their top card. Don't let other players see your card either.

3. Player 1, the first person to the left of the dealer, chooses and reads what they believe is the best statistic listed on their top card and places it in the center of the players.

4. Each player reads out the same statistic on their top card and places it in the center.

5. The player with the highest value wins all the cards in the middle and adds them to the bottom of their own stack of cards.

6. This player gets to choose the statistic for the next round and the game goes on.

7. The person who eventually wins ALL of the cards is the winner!

To make the game even more competitive and add some more strategy to it, instead of just looking at one card at a time in your hand eliminate the no peek rule. This means players can look at all the cards in their hand when choosing which cards and stats to use. Once the basic Top Trump rules have been mastered this is a nice way to take game play up a notch.

We always have a good time playing Top Trumps. Plus my kids are learning while having fun. Featuring impressive eye-catching illustrations and photography and intriguing trivia, Top Trumps gets A Geek Daddy nod of approval for being a top-notch game that combines educational aspects with recreation.

For more information about how to play the game or where to purchase Top Trumps decks, head over to toptrumps.us. Also thanks to Wholesale Halloween Costumes for providing us with the Jurassic World masks and AtmosFX for the dinosaur digital decorations seen in the background.